Avian Gamers Network

It'll be hilarious when they decide it's in the 'best interests of the game' to keep the survey in place after release.

_________________
Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

For those of us who were really looking forward to a good Middle Earth MMO (ive been a Tolkien nut since the 1970's) this game is a HUGE disappointment.

And I played it solid for a month before I finally decided that.........

(All of Alpha 2 and Alpha 3, and a bit of Beta)

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Unfortunately, we've entered the age of MMO's trying to become a Hollywood type business. Everyone trying to follow the same formula, but throw in some nice explosions or scenery and a star cast (the cast being wahtever IP be it LOTR, DC Comics, D&D). Just think of all the unoriginal movies you see released year after year, with the studio thinking people was see it en masse because it's got Ben Affleck in it or some other no talent hack and it follows the summer lack luster release formula. Who cares if it's engaging or unique? It's got a name you know in the title and caters to the lowest common denominator to get sales. With WoW's unusual success, we'll only see more and more "straight to video" equivilants of MMO's thinking that just because of the IP they're using, they are garuanteed success. The truely unique and exciting MMO's will be the equivilant of art house/indie flicks. Probably the best game you'll ever play, but it's just too smart/complex for Joe Lunchbox to get his head around and won't make the billions of WoW dollars.

Amen brother, I dont have a problem with WoW per se, its just not the game for me because Im looking for the:



So the last thing I wanted to see was another WoW clone.......................

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

One major thing WoW has going for it is it owns the IP. It's their baby. They can add, change, and do whatever it is they want to the legend of Warcraft without some IP owner shooting down every creative idea or asking for more money to do something in a particular way or using characters in game. Middle Earth Online was the way to go.

I could talk about MMO thoughts all day It's dead in the office today.

Yep WoW clone and Turbines hands are tied.

I dont see a large following of long term players for this one.

Maybe a lot of "buy it, play it for a few months" mainly because of the name, but I see very little long term appeal.

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

This, I think, is the appeal of EVE. They've started out with a solid game and not too many expectations and they freely admit that it's not easy to get into (ie steep learning curve). It is interesting, however, that another of the "niche" market MMOs, RV, is completely the opposite in terms of success and it just fails to inspire.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

Hey guys, thanks for all this info.

RV has/had several shortfalls in execution. Graphics are a major one. Relying on these engines (speedtree for example) have hurt them. There's no sense of immersion there other than you are some 3D toon that looks REAL similar to everyone else running on a horribly primal 3D surface. And they made it TOO realistic, ignoring the cries from the majority to "fun it up" some. Who wants hold down the run key ( another HUGE failure for RV is the UI. It's the worst I've seen in a game in years) for 4 hours just to reach a mine where you can get 15 pieces of ore and run back another 4 hours to make a spear tip.

We really need to learn to program and design a game. You know the old saying, if you want it done right.... lol

Practically everyone uses SpeedTree. The use of middleware is not an issue, how they use it though...

The fate of RV is par for the course. The likes of EVE are the exceptions.

Yeah Speedtree was a bad example; it was just the first to pop in my mind at the time. The trees are probably the looking objects in the game.
What is the terrain engine? It looks very similar to WWII online.

Terrain is easy to do so could be coded from scratch. And as a result easy to do poorly. A simple perlin noise function will generate some bumpy terrain but it won't necessarily look natural.
A lot of terrain will probably look similar (accounting for textures and lighting).

OK I have a skewed viewpoint, Im an engineer by trade and was a part time military engineer in a Navy construction battalion that spent our time doing general engineering/construction work in support of the logistics train mainly for the USMC. (Thats what "SeaBees" do)

Anyway there is a lot to learn in EVE but I dont find the learning curve that steep. Maybe its just my background but I enjoy calculating return rates, and how much time its going to take me to mine, etc. Figuring out what skills to trian are going to give me the best payback short term vs long term.

EVE is probably the best sandbox type game Ive played, I can do what I want when I want to, and how I want to do it.

That to me is the beauty of EVE.

Makes LOTRO all that much more of a disappointment.

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Well let me put this the way I see it. It took me somewhere between half an hour to two hours to work out what SWG was about and, more or less, how to do most things. In EVE, I was still trying to firgure things out after a week. Even now, there are things in EVE I'm not sure about. Ok, maybe that's more due to depth than the learning curve, but it did definately take longer to get into EVE.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

OK I agree, I dont have a clue right now about manufactoring and BPO's for instance and Ive been playing about 6 weeks. And I learn new things all the time.

I think thats part of the appeal for a more mature gamer, its an intellectual game and things build for you slowly, its not just go out and kill stuff, rinse and repeat.

It all depends upon perspective I guess

Can you imagine how popular EVE would be if they combined a non laggy ground game ala SWG with the space combat metagame they have right now???????

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

By the sounds of some of the Dev blogs, that idea is in the works.

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

yes, issue 5 of EON covers this but planetary flight is 1.25 years away and ground game is after that.

_________________
Moge

you think its a big learning curve now...how about a noob in 2.5 years...LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

_________________

More reason to start now!

_________________
X2-PB

Pathfinder Kingmaker Campaign:
Gednan Malithanar - Wizard (1)
Dukin Thunderstrike - Ranger (1)

Star Citizen: - https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/
AntanKarmola on their forums

Star Wars: The Old Republic: - Not really playing
Antare Karmola - Jedi Guardian (32)
Antan Karmola - Jedi Shadow (21)
Arianae Karmola - Gunslinger (20)

I'm beginning to agree. I've been following all the posts about EVE, and I'm liking what I hear from you all about this game. My one big negative about this game was the lack of land content. Sounds like that is coming in a couple years... since my game time is very sparse at the moment, this game might be the perfect thing for me to start dabbling in to get myself some experience in something new.

Forgive my noobness, but what is planetary flight going to add to the game?

_________________
TheMole
Section 5
Section 5
Section 5
Now Playing: WoW
--------------------

from what I understand it will bring conquerable lands and mining as well as stuff for the new explorer sub-class. Other than that, it will look relaly cool

_________________
Moge

I've been following some of the LotR boards about this beta and from some of the comments in this thread I've come to the conclusion that I will not try it at all.

It's a massive disappointment even considering that I knew it would never live up to my expectations. After the HORRID movies. Yes, they were HORRID! I just knew they couldn't make a game that captured my vision of Middle Earth. Shame, really.

I'm putting all my hope on Vanguard now as the only possible alternative to WOW.

Got a spare 30gigs for it?

At least pin your soon-to-be-dashed hopes on something that looks like it could be somewhat decent, like Age of Conan.
Red hot pokers and eyes come to mind when thinking of Vanguard.

lol

I've been meaning to look into Vanguard. I was really enjoying the development of Stargate Worlds, or what ever it's called now, UNTIL they announced it's going to have an FPS oriented interface. Note to game studios - STOP IT! Just stop it right now! Bad design! Bad! No more FPS MMORPG abortions

That leaves Star Trek as the last glimmering hope of a Sci-Fi MMORPG and that's still years out.

pfft... rubbish!
Nothing wrong with FPS in an MMO. It's just been let down by some poorly executed attempts (which could be said of any number of different aspects of MMOs).
Macro mashing is dulllll......

Until I see a clean, working FPS UI in a MMORPG, it'll be rubbish to me.

If you're trying to develop a game, say another world environment, you're not going to be able to retain older players in an FPS. Now, I'm only 31, but there's no way I can hang with the kids anymore when I play something like Halo or CS. My reflexes just aren't what they used to be. So, why would I want to play a game that is great, but I can't be competative in combat because I don't have ADHD haven't drank a gallon of Bawlz? I used to consider myself pretty good at Halo and would often be on the giving side of a good ass whooping to my friends. Now, when I'm at my neighbors house and their 14 yr old son challenges me, it's a sad sad day.

_________________
Dalaran: Arindel - Frost Mage (Mining/Alchemy)
Dalaran: Roran - Paladin (Weaponsmith/Blacksmith)
Dalaran: Baine - Rogue

It depends on what you are looking for. Vanguard, appears, to have the open ended, Epic type gameplay I'm interested in. It will probably be too ambitious, but I can still hope.

Another I'm interested in seeing is the Warhammer. I'm a big fan of the world and with Mythic behind them it should be good.

I simply detested the LotR movies. After years and years of visualizing the events of the books, it was sad to see what it had become on the big screen. Sorry to derail, but I felt like vent.

Back to the game.. I got an email from Turbine this morning I thought was amusing. It looks like not enough people are using the crafting system, so their inticing players with Best Buy giftcards at random to test crafting this weekend.

That should make the developers ask "well, why aren't people crafting? is it the system? does it have value?" instead of " throw money at them Johnson! they'll craft for us then"

Totally wrong approach.

The LOTRO crafting system right now is a total joke, until january of this year they weren't going to have crafting, then threw something together at the last minute for alpha/beta.

You guys don't know how disappointed I am in this game.

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

I can imagine My biggest let down was Master of Orion 3. After being a huge fan of that franchise since it launched, the following MMO3 for years through development, it ended up being a huge letdown. Wait... now that I think about it, just about ever game I've looked forward to in the last 2 years has been a watered down disappointing version of the original concept.

I was in LOTR this past Sunday to give it a go again. After spending 20 some odd minutes competing for diseased badgers along with 5 other people at the only node where 1 spawns at a time... I finally threw in the towel.

Aranarth said it. LOTRO plays like an Electronic Arts game. It's mediocre. The interface (both UI and the way the player is expected to interact with the software) is counter-intuitive in many ways. The graphics scale horribly if your computer isn't tip top. Those things might be mostly overlooked if the gameplay weren't formulaic and f**king boring.

I have to say I'm terribly disappointed.

This, coming from someone who's followed the game for the past three years, managed multiple fan sites for it, been very involved with the community, and almost went to work on the game.

I doubt I would play the game if it were free. Not unless something is extensively altered before it launches. But looking at the whole development process for the game, how many times have they drastically altered the game design already? I've lost count.

I ought to have seen it coming, considering the massive let-down that DDO was. I suppose the irony of it all is that Warhammer Online is likely to be wildly successful when compared to LOTRO - and it's actually produced by EA - the champions of mediocrity themselves.

Vanguard looks interesting, but the fact that SOE is producing it makes me cringe. Remember SWG, anyone?

I'm holding out for Age of Conan.

_________________
:: Orbital :: Section Three ::

Official Avian Mascot - Sock Puppet
Board of Directors - Ex-Chairman

I didn't realize that EA had anything to do with Warhammer Online. Certainly they aren't involved game design-wise.

Mythic have a track record in the genre. DAOC is still very popular and gets good reviews even now. Warhammer could do far worse than having them building the game.

EA has become to represent all that is bad in the world of pc gaming. It seems that whatever they touch runs to shit.

Mythic sold themselves to the devil....eh, EA.
It's probably too late for EA to have much impact on development of WAR though. If anything Mythic might get a bit distracted with taking on any UO work they've had shoved on to their plate.
But EA have a bad track record in running/supporting MMOs. They, like Microsoft, just don't seem to 'get' MMOs.

They "get" money. That's it. I'm sorry to read that about Mythic joining EA. It doesn't forbode goodness.

They just sent me a survey to rate systems and features in the game. Sadly, the most intensive and detailed part of the survey concerned the chat system.

this should really be moved to private...but yea i got an invite too

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

so.... did ya do it?

umm over thanksgiving maybe... it would take too long to d/l on the school network, which is only d/l friendly or gaming friendly at night

_________________
Ryric Krael
Former Vice President AGN
Former Director, Section 6
Former Head of Department of the Treasury
-------
Ask not what your PA can do for you, but what you can do for your PA
"Gone Section Five"

Really? Who are you in LOTROland? Im Aranarth as well over there but haven't really posted much on the officials in months, got tired of all the whining and n00bs asking the same questions over and over.

Did you ever spend any time at LOTROsource?

_________________
"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."